THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220274
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 67 lines
Virginia Beach will not rejoin the region's curbside recycling effort unless major improvements are made and a $1-per-home recycling fee is dropped, city officials said this week.
Their comments come as the Southeastern Public Service Authority tries today to coax its biggest customer back to the fold, a full month after the resort city rejected the new fee and withdrew from SPSA's curbside program.
As bait, SPSA's board of directors will attempt to pass a lesser, 50-cent-per-household fee when it meets today in Chesapeake, several board members said.
The move would reduce the financial impact on Virginia Beach from $1.3 million a year to about $560,000, according to SPSA estimates.
But this week, Virginia Beach City Manager James K. Spore and Solid Waste Director Wade Kyle said that they would not support rejoining SPSA's program even if a 50-cent fee were adopted.
``It wouldn't matter to us,'' Spore said, ``we'd still stay out.''
The 50-cent fee was endorsed last winter by SPSA's staff and executives as a first step toward recovering curbside costs, which now run about $2.4 million a year. However, it was rejected by a 4-3 board vote last month. The board instead imposed the $1 monthly charge.
Virginia Beach's sudden departure after seven years of curbside recycling has sparked much debate over the city's environmental commitment, although city leaders are proposing an expanded do-it-yourself recycling program. They're also discussing a possible city-run curbside program for as early as next year.
The curbside departure has sent SPSA executives scrambling for ways to plug a projected $1.3 million hole in their annual budget. They had expected to collect that money from Virginia Beach through the $1 recycling fee.
To make up the difference, SPSA wants to hike ``tipping fees,'' or what the authority charges cities and commercial haulers in South Hampton Roads for trash services.
The increase would raise tipping fees from $45 per ton of garbage to $47 a ton, said executive director Durwood Curling.
SPSA's board will consider the hike today, Curling said. If approved, the increase would not affect Virginia Beach or Suffolk, since both cities host landfills and get cut rates on disposal fees. Other authority members - Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Southampton and Isle of Wight counties - would feel the pinch.
Virginia Beach has long complained that SPSA's curbside recycling program is inefficient and costly. Its leaders have pressed for a ``co-mingled'' system, in which more goods - including colored glass, more plastics, telephone books, magazines and cardboard - could be collected by SPSA crews.
But that hasn't happened, and Virginia Beach has grown tired of waiting.
Virginia Beach is studying its own curbside system that would use a 65-gallon, covered bin. The bins would be emptied once a month at the curb by a mechanical arm extending from existing city trash trucks, Kyle said.
Virtually all types of recyclable goods could be collected, he said, all for about $250,000 a year. However, the city would have to spend about $1 million a year for five years to purchase the big new bins.
``Right now we just think we can offer better service to our citizens,'' he said. ``But we're willing to listen what SPSA's plans are.''
Since last month, SPSA has been experimenting with a sorting facility that would speed curbside collection but not increase the types of goods the authority can recycle. The facility was purchased by Tidewater Fibre Corp. which also is testing it.
Curling said the facility has been ``doing just great'' during trial collection runs the past two weeks.
Kyle said the facility ``is a good first step'' toward better service. Neither Kyle nor Spore would say if the facility is enough to warrant re-entry to SPSA's program. by CNB